Matthew
Hernández is a sophomore from Los Angeles, CA. He first
joined the Immaculate ConceptionApostolic School in Colfax,
California in 2006, and moved to Sacred Heart in 2011.
The following is his testimony:

It’s so easy to be proud sometimes.
This proved to be true when I set out on
a humanitarian mission to Mexico. You feel really good about
yourself when you manage to raise the $1,500 you need
for the trip, even though it was only possible thanks
to others’ generosity in donating to your cause (and possibly
their pity at reading your poorly written letter). But when
you’re as excited as I was when the checks started
arriving, it’s easy to set this fact aside.

Anyways, the time
for the trip comes: Friday, March 8th, 2013. We landed
at the airport in Mexico City, and after waiting for
our bus we set off to the CEYCA, the school
where the apostolics and precandidates from the city’s two Legionary
minor seminaries study. Following a brief tour of the place,
we bustled back onto the bus, and headed to the
apostolic school of La Joya. With my very first step
into their dining room for dinner, I immediately felt a
charity overload. Being able to speak Spanish, I was overwhelmed
by their conversations. They were just so good to each
other, and everything they said was constructive and positive. All
of dinner continued like this, and I asked myself if
I would be able to keep up with their niceness.“Lord, please help me!” I pleaded.

We would be
spending the next two nights at this apostolic school. The
following day we experienced their charity to the max in
playing sports with them for a good three hours. In
the evening of the same day, we went over to
the other apostolic school, that of Ajusco. The spirit of
service and charity we found at La Joya also reigned
among the brother here. The band played two songs for
us and later we joined the precandidate community for supper,
after playing video games with them, of course. We returned
to La Joya and went to bed, exhausted. Sunday morning
saw us arising early (4 a.m., to be precise) and
going to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We
spent some four hours there, praying in the several churches
that are found on the hill of Tepeyac. Seeing Our
Lady’s image was definitely a much needed deep spiritual experience
that God allowed me to undergo, preparing me for the
upcoming days. We returned to La Joya and had lunch
with Fr. Sylvester, the Legion’s vicar-general. And upon our departure
from the apostolic school at the end of the meal,
the real missions began.

We took a five hour bus ride
to Leon, Guanajuato, and still further, to a little village
in the middle of the mountains called Santa Rosa. Once
we arrived at eleven that night, we had dinner with

Matthew Hernández

the community’s parish priest, Fr. Jorge, and several of the
villagers. Fr. Jorge had about 32 other communities under his
care, scattered all over the mountains. This guy was a
hardcore apostle on fire with love for Christ, and that’s
why all the people loved him. The following day, Monday,
I had one of the most fervent masses of my
life. Fr. Jorge gave a powerful homily about our mission,
and he blessed us giving us each a crucifix that
would become our best friend over the next days. Following
mass, we did the opposite of all the sacrificing and
suffering stuff Father had talked about: he took us to
breakfast at a wonderful restaurant in the town. As if
this wasn’t enough, Fr. Jorge then took us for a
tour of Santa Rosa.We stopped at a
store belonging to a group of women who devoted themselves
to making candies, liquors, and such things that reflected the
region’s rich traditions. We then visited a gorgeous pottery shop
and their warehouse. Fr. Daren, the rector of Sacred Heart,
here reminded us that we came as missionaries, not as
tourists.

The sightseeing came to an abrupt end as we directed
ourselves back to our sleeping quarters. We gathered our bags
and said goodbye to the people who, over one night
and half a day, had given us so much. We
split up into groups and, crowding onto the beds of

three pickup trucks, took a half hour drive on the
disgustingly dusty and inordinately bumpy road to El Varal, where
we’d be replacing the roofs and installing insulation in a
number of adobe houses. The roofs they had were simply
sheets of metal above where they slept, often with holes
in them, and pieces of cardboard over the rest of
their small home. Often when we‘d climb up on their
houses to do our job, the adobe would crumble beneath
us. We cautiously moved around the roof to fasten the
sheet metal, for fear that the thin boards nailed together
to serve as beams would snap with our weight. The
mountain sun burned hot on our backs as we did
our work. Many missionaries got a tan by the first
day! We also built two chapels, which were basically no-walled
structures with brick floors and sheet metal roofs. Obviously, we
sweat like crazy as we worked. But there weren’t any
showers, not even running water! So we had to put
up with the smell of sweaty guy who hadn’t showered
for five days. And did I mention that we had
to share tents? Five men to a tent. You can
imagine how that went....Since the village was
located way up in the mountains, the temperatures were often
in the extremes, that is, really hot by day and
really cold by night. My sleeping bag didn’t offer much
warmth, but hey, it was better than nothing. And quite
frankly I didn’t care that we were deprived of many
commodities during our mission trip. It was a mission trip,
after all. Just seeing the way the villagers lived helped
me not feel bad about myself. These people were tough,
yet they were real people who had real souls that
really needed Christ. They were lucky to have a priest
come once a month, not because the priest did a
bad job, but because the need for priests was so
great and the priests were so few.

Any sacrifices we may
have made were simply in imitation of the people’s lifestyle:
acceptance of extreme poverty and hard work. During my whole
stay, I only saw four men in the village. Three
were working with us, and one was an elderly man
who couldn’t work. All the other men, working together by
families, were busy chopping down trees from four in the
morning to eleven at night. They then burned the trees
to make charcoal, which they sold for cheap because they
couldn’t compete with other producers. It took about a month
to produce a large truckload, and all they earned was
about $230, or around $7 a day. Whatever money the
men received was to support the entire family. Our work
didn’t seem like much in comparison with theirs.

All this we
accomplished during our four days at El Varal. Yet these
four days were enough to change my life. Life lessons
I learned include detachment, simplicity, and acceptance of God’s will.
Happiness isn’t related to the amount of material good one
has. For example, all the village kids had to play
with were a soccer ball and stray dogs. (They loved
to kick both!) Yet they always had a smile on
their face. The adults as well were always joyful, even
though they suffered because they barely had food, were cold
at night, wished they could do more for their family…
But their joy came from their simple trust in God
and the deep peace that ensues. While we were at
the village, a baby, only a few months old, died.
These people were too simple to understand the whole theological
argument as to why God allows such thing to happen.
But in their simplicity they proved to be wiser than
anyone else, because they understood that it was God’s will,
and it was somehow best for them. Their humble reply
was, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Many other things
happened while we were there, but our time to leave
the village came that Friday. We went to a nearby
camp owned by one of the men who helped us
on missions, and there we showered for the first time
in five days! Saturday we went to the Shrine of
Cristo Rey in Silao, and later to the city of
Guanajuato. Sunday was spent with at the apostolic school in
Leon. Waking up early on Monday for the five hour
bus ride back to Mexico City, our trip had come
to a close. On the plane ride back, I meditated
on the blessings God gave me over the past ten
days. And I’m still meditating.

It’s so easy to be proud
sometimes, but when the people you helped ended up giving
you more than you gave them, something has to change.